2. Ratings war The television industry thrives on its viewership, the
more people watch their shows, the more people watch
their adds, buy their products, and tell others about
said show to boost subscriptions. But there is a finite
amount of viewers at any point, so the channel has to
attract people to their channel over any other, this leads
to “rating wars”, where two or more channels puts
particular effort into attracting more viewers or
listeners than its rival, they can do this by ensuring that
an important time slot, such as primetime (8-9pm) is
taken up by a well liked show,
3. Technologies
(Internet and
Smartphones)
During the early 2010’s, the rise of smartphones
alongside the new prominent streaming market
(Netflix, Hulu), meant that people could watch whatever
they want, wherever they want, whenever they want.
This meant that it became harder for networks to
“push” shows by putting them on a primetime slot. It
also means to keep up, many networks will simply
allow their shows to be shown on streaming sites for a
fee, meaning that the television version becomes
largely obsolete.
Recordings have also changed the industry in many
ways, allowing for a show to be recorded means that
audience retention for ads are lower as they can often
be skipped through, and again timeslots mean less.
4. Regulation Ofcom is the is the UK government-approved
regulatory and competition authority for the
broadcasting and telecommunications of the United
Kingdom that was founded in 2002, They instituted a
broadcasting code that requires that content
inappropriate for children should not be broadcast
between the hours of 5:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m, this
creates issues for networks as it does not allow them
to show more adult shows during the primetime for
television, meaning they will have trouble “pushing”
shows with adult content.
5. Audience effect
theories.
Moral Panic-
For as long as it had existed, Television has been used
as a tool for propaganda, Moral panic is an example of
how television can do this, a sense of fear about a
specific thing spread by any means, in this case,
television. Look no further than the 80’s, where the
tabletop RPG “Dungeons and Dragons” Where news
media berated the game, blaming it for multiple
murders and suicides. A sixty minutes special where
the claimants argued with the creator of the game, and
full television movie “mazes and monsters”, that
exaggerated the role D&D played in a suicide. This can
in turn hurt a channels ratings as they lose fans to
other sides of the debate.
6. Audience effect
theories.
Encoding/Decoding- Stuart hall
Encoding/Decoding It is how media messages are
produced, circulated and consumed, proposing a new
theory of communication, Hall argued that the meaning
is not fixed/determined by the sender, the message is
never transparent and the audience is not a passive
recipient of meaning. That There is a “lack of fit”
between the production of the media, and its message
('encoding') and the person who recives it('decoding').
The actual meaning of a peice of media is a midway
point between its production and its recipeint. This
means that without a finite meaning, many messages
are misinterpreted, sometimes allowing people to stay
within a narrow point of veiw despite watching radical
proggraming.
7. Audience effect
theories.
Uses and Gratifications-
The uses and gratifications theory states the people seek out
media in order to fill specific needs. These needs include the need
to:
1)be informed or educated
2)identify with characters of the situation in the media
environment
3)simple entertainment
4)enhance social interaction
5)escape from the stresses of daily life
The Uses and Gratification theory states that all media sets out to
fulfill one or more of these needs, This can be considered
problematic because it implies that in the need to fulfill these
needs, studios can whittle all entertainment down into simple
unchallenging forms of media to sate needs, and due to the
effect television has on society, this can cause a simplification of
the human lexicon and general breth of thought.
